Puzzletober 2026: Rescue
As the door slowly creaks open, they are delighted to find that the chamber ahead of them is naturally lit. Felix claims, "This could be the prize room. We've finally made it." When they enter the room, there is something completely different in the center. A woman is trapped in a cage in the center of the room. Instinctively, she calls for help.
As Renn rushes forward, Felix quickly glances about the room. The oubliette is lit by moonlight through a grate in the roof, which is locked by a hatch from the inside. Various pipes climb the walls, all connected to valves and many gushing water in various directions. One pipe sends water a few inches away from the woman's head. The floor slopes downward slightly from the center toward the walls, where it drops off into a pool shaped like the thick edges of a square.
The cage is held shut by a taut loop of vines surrounding the edges. Renn tries to trim the vine at a safe angle, but the axe keeps wanting to veer through the cage and slice the center. He slows down, collects his thoughts, and makes a decisive cut.
Rules: Normal sudoku rules apply. The cage in the center is a killer cage which has been encrypted in the same way as in Miniature, and its value may also be cut in half as many times as needed with the ax. Digits in cells directly connected by the green lines contain values that differ by at least 5. The bulbed lines are not thermometers: they represent the arcs taken by the water. Progressing along the arc, the signed difference between two connected numbers increases by 1 from the bulb out. For example, an arc may read 1467764 or 8875.
